


Three Times Dexter Charming Failed at Romance...

by pixie_rings



Category: Ever After High
Genre: Alternate Future: everyone's a Rebel, Dexter's terrible dating track record, F/F, F/M, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 20:39:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4680611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixie_rings/pseuds/pixie_rings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>...and One Time He Didn't</i>
</p>
<p>Dexter Charming isn't good at this, not by a long haul. But he can get better at it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Times Dexter Charming Failed at Romance...

**Author's Note:**

> AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
> 
> My first Ever After High fanfic. And with this, my steady descent into fairy tale doll hell is complete. Good for me. If you want me, I'll be lying on the floor, marvelling at my terrible life choices.

_Raven_

It had been going well... if crippling awkwardness and embarrassment and confusion could be considered going well, but as first loves went, it went practically without a hitch.

Raven Queen had been everything a dorky teenage boy could hope for: smart, pretty, fun and with enough patience to put up with him. And it had been good. She'd been the catalyst of not only sexual awareness, but also the weird thing called love. And he _had_ loved her, because only love could feel this painful and amazing all at once, or so Cupid had said, and you tended to listen to what the daughter of the God of Love had to say about stuff like that. Experts were there to be listened to.

And maybe, just maybe, if life hadn't thrown spanners in the works, they could have gotten somewhere.

But whoa, there had been _spanners_. Dragons attacking the village. Big Bad Wolves in the forest. The conflict that all stories needed to have in order to be stories, though Raven and Dexter's denouement had been pretty harmless compared to others'.

The first issue had been that if you were a Charming, you either fell in love with the first person of the opposite sex you laid eyes on, or you didn't fall in love at all. Dexter was a Charming prince – even though he didn't exactly feel like it – and he had not only his fate to fulfil, but his family's reputation to uphold. Raven was the daughter of the Evil Queen and if there was one thing the Charming family cared about, it was Great and Inexorable Destiny.

Dexter still remembered his father taking him to the side, along the great gallery full of portraits of Prince Charmings past: the Cinderellas' Charmings, the Snow Whites' Charmings, the Sleeping Beauties' and the Rapunzels' and every other princess in every fairy tale. When he was six and too small to realise the dangers of heteronormativity and stagnation, it had been equal parts terrifying and inspiring. As he'd grown, he'd come to hate it, attempting to push it away as Daring had embraced it, and he'd understood Darling even more with every year that passed. But he hadn't dared to actually voice any of this. This discomfort would pass.

Then Raven had appeared, a wicked vision of Gothic beauty, and he'd fallen _hard_. And suddenly, the idea of being some random Princess's Prince was so unappealing it made him feel queasy. Sure, he loved his parents, he wanted to see them happy, but... why couldn't he be happy too? Stories were such a huge burden to bear, who even cared anymore?

This was an issue that could have been overcome easily. Raven was all about that rebellion, it was kind of her thing, and Dexter had begun to entertain the idea of just throwing off the shackles of his destiny and embracing the uncertainty of a fateless future. It seemed liberating. But there was one other issue that couldn't be so easily surmounted.

Apple White.

Dexter had watched, pretty much powerless, as the girl he loved and the girl his brother was supposed to love grew steadily closer and closer, coming together in a way that, when it was thought about, was pretty much perfect. And who was he to begrudge Apple White her victory? You couldn't hate Apple, it was like hating puppies or rainbows or something else equally unifying in its perfection. So when Raven had told him, nervous, a little teary, that she loved Apple, he'd accepted it with the grace a prince should. It hadn't been hard to turn their affection from romantic to amicable, and Dexter was fine with that. Raven was a hexcellent friend. He was fine with that. He was... he _wasn't_ fine with that. Watching Raven walk away, arm-in-arm with living perfection, was the hardest thing he'd ever done, and it broke his heart.

_Cupid_

That was how he'd found himself, on the cusp of graduation, sniffling over Raven. And Cupid had been there, like a divine safety net, and well... rebounds happened. She'd been there to put the pieces back together, and he'd let her be the glue to his shards.

Cupid had been his best friend for... ages. And it felt good to allow her to get closer. It was strange, how he hadn't been able to see her like that before now, but she didn't seem to mind.

Cupid had been his first time, and he wasn't sure whether it had been innate knowledge or practice, but she'd been the height of ecstasy. She made it perfect, guided him through what he'd needed to do – and he'd gladly followed her instructions – and in all honesty he'd never had sex that good ever after. You couldn't ever do better than the daughter of the God of Love, right?

While the sex had been amazing, the rest... had been odd. He'd expected sex to go hand-in-hand with the same bright, burning affection he'd felt for Raven, but with Cupid, it... didn't. He was fond of her, yes, but it didn't want to go any further than that. When he looked at her, he saw his friend, but his friend with, what was the term?, benefits. He loved Cupid, but he wasn't _in love_ with Cupid. She probably saw it a mile off, but that didn't stop her.

This had lasted for six whole months. Six months until, more than a little drunk on Hunter's home-brewed east-of-the-moonshine, some things were laid bare, and sometimes the truth wasn't always the bright thing that made wooden puppets real. Sometimes it was ugly, the kind of truth that made queens ask huntsmen for princesses' hearts.

Cupid's ugly truth had been, as she giggled, that she'd had a crush on Dexter since forever, and that she loved him, oh, how she loved him. They were going to get married and have children and screw destiny, love overcame all obstacles. She could even play the part of the princess, if need be, that was easy enough.

Dexter's ugly truth had been the opposite, and as the words had spilled out in a torrent that had been impossible to hold back, the atmosphere changed completely.

She'd looked at him, shocked, suddenly sober, and there'd been no going back from that.

That was how he'd found himself tacking up an ad for a new room-mate. And that was, coincidentally, how he'd come to even _consider_ the third unlucky person.

_Sparrow_

Sparrow had turned up on his doorstep with his guitar and what Dexter supposed had been a duffel bag full of belongings. He'd looked like he was swallowing his pride, when he'd asked whether there was still room with Dexter.

Reluctantly, given Sparrow's track record, he'd allowed it. He was still a prince and a Charming, and both those things meant graciousness, generosity and giving the benefit of the doubt when someone who clearly needed your help   
knocked on your door. But he also didn't trust Sparrow as far as he could throw him.

Sparrow, however... turned out to be exactly as Dexter had expected. He returned at stupid hours in the morning, laughing, drunk or high or both, and proceed to make enough noise to wake Briar fifty years early. He'd sit in underwear all day, surviving on bowls of cereal eaten from a cooking pan (it wasn't like they didn't have bowls!), and play his guitar. That college was for lessons was, apparently, too lofty a concept for Sparrow to grasp. He did, however, pay the rent in full and always on time, and he never really did anything too horrific, which was the only reason Dexter allowed him to stay. Not that he knew where Sparrow had gotten the funds, but he wasn't about to ask where the son of Robin Hood got his money.

For the most part, Dexter left Sparrow alone, and Sparrow left Dexter alone. It was fine that way.

But then... well, Sparrow stopped leaving Dexter alone. He'd badger Dexter, begging him to come to this gig or that party when all Dexter really wanted to do was study, maybe play a few mirrorgames and meet his sister, brother or Raven for coffee. That was it. But Sparrow was insistent, irritatingly so, and so Dexter had begrudgingly agreed – anything to shut him up.

That was how, too late to be early and too early to be late, they'd wound up staggering into their shared apartment, Dexter too drunk to really see straight. And he'd done something incredibly stupid. He'd dragged Sparrow towards him, glasses tilting one way and crown the other, and grinned. Then he'd kissed him.

They'd fallen into bed, and Dexter had woken up the next morning naked with a hangover. Not one of his brightest moments. He hadn't really known what to do with himself. He'd had abstract thoughts about other guys before – who hadn't, really, they weren't stuck back in the times when tales were still being written – but _Sparrow_? Either he had terrible taste or it was the Last-Unicorn-and-vodkas from the night before who did.

And, well, it wasn't that Sparrow was bad-looking, it was just... well, _Sparrow_.

But Sparrow seemed perfectly cool with this, didn't bat an eye (and that made Dexter think about the tension between him and Hunter way back in their school days, and, well, maybe Hunter and Alistair hadn't just been a bolt in the blue after all). In fact... he seemed to like Dexter.

But, well, it didn't last long. Sparrow had a way of being too possessive for a guy who was supposed to steal from the rich and give to the poor, and sex turned to shouting and eventually Dexter had demanded he leave. Sparrow hadn't been happy about that, but Dexter had been beyond caring at that point.

_Hopper_

And so here he was, at Raven and Apple's glorious beginning of Happily Ever After, sipping champagne and being more than happy for the brides (aw hex, he'd been a bridesman, hadn't he, of course he was happy for them!).

“Is this seat, uh, taken?”

Dexter looked up, tearing his eyes away from the dancefloor where Briar was attempting to coordinate a chair dance for the brides. It was funny, but Dexter had done his dancing, he felt. Once you'd danced with your ex, your ex's wife, your sister, your sister's girlfriend, your _other_ ex and even Briar, because Briar had danced with literally everyone present, well then, you'd exhausted your dancing opportunities. Hopper looked down at him expectantly, and he nodded.

“Sure, sit away,” he said, smiling.

“You know, I'm not surprised they're the first to get married,” Hopper said. Dexter chuckled.

“Well, yeah... that's all Apple's doing, obviously. Happy Ending or bust.”

Hopper laughed, and then they both lapsed into a silence that Dexter couldn't quite decipher. It was only when there was a poof of smoke and a pop that he realised the silence was mostly nervous, at least on Hopper's part. He peered over to see Hopper's frog form on the chair, looking a little frazzled.

“Drat and blast it!” he exclaimed, adjusting his crown irritably. “I had hoped to not be so obnoxiously metamorphosed during this conversation.”

Dexter chuckled. “Well, accidents happen,” he said philosophically. “What's with the change, then?”

Hopper looked up at him, and for the first time in his life, Dexter saw complete and utter embarrassment on Hopper's amphibian face. That was very, very new. He helf a hand out, palm up, the perfect height for a small hop. Hopper looked at it, back up to Dexter's face, and took the offer.

“Well, I have been meaning to enquire after what I believe they call _stepping out_ with you for some months now, but I never, er... got round to it. I was not enthused with the idea of taking on my batrachian form while asking, and therefore...”

“You were too embarrassed?” Dexter asked, a little incredulously. “You're usually so glib like this.”

“Well, one has one's off days,” Hopper sniffed self-righteously, and once again Dexter laughed.

“You don't have to be shy about them,” he said, a little teasingly, and he honestly couldn't have said whether it was the champagne or something else. He liked to think it was something else.

In a sudden fit of bravery, something he hadn't had lately since his last fit of bravery had landed him with Sparrow of all people, he kissed Hopper on top of the head, and found himself with an armful of newly-retransformed Frog Prince. That wasn't such a bad situation.

“Oh, uh, well, ok then,” Hopper stammered, his cheeks going red. “This is fine. _Good_ , even.”

“So, I take it you want a date?” Dexter asked, surprised at the words coming out of his mouth.

“Yes. Yes, great! I have to say, I was not expecting you to be so smooth.”

Dexter shrugged. “Well, I guess practice makes perfect?” he offered, making Hopper chuckle.

Across the dancefloor, Cupid met Dexter's eye. She offered him a smile and a wink. And well, you had to listen to the daughter of the God of Love when she offered advice, didn't you?

The thing which ended up shocking Dexter most of all, was when, almost a year later, the both of them realised that Hopper hadn't turned into a frog even once since Raven and Apple's wedding.


End file.
